Numbers, Not Teams

One advantage of work travel is the opportunity to read during flights, and on my latest trip I took the opportunity to re-read Jack Moore's 1996 book The Complete Book of Sports Betting, A New No-Nonsense Approach to Sports Gambling. 

It's a read more for US sports and readers, and it's a little dated, but it does explain how lines and spreads came about, how they work, and emphasises what I have said here many times, which is that when betting, you are not betting against the bookmaker, you are betting against other market entrants. 

Jack Moore writes:

The line, on any given game, is in no way an expression of the line maker's opinion on how the two teams will fare. Rather, it is the line maker's expert opinion on what number will sufficiently induce half of the collective betting public's money to come in on the underdog and and half on the favourite. The line maker is interested in what the public will do, not in what the ballplayers will do.

Later in the book, Jack Moore clarifies:

Keep in mind that it is not the number of bets that come in on one side or the other that matters but the sum total of those bets; thus in the extreme case, a hundred $10 bets are offset by one $1,000 bet.

It's something else I have written about in the past, and it's very annoying that Pinnacle keep tweeting out useless 'bet share' numbers, presumably thinking that their followers are stupid enough to pay such meaningless numbers any heed. No doubt some of them are. We need the total amount being bet too, but that's not free. Here is some analysis based on the money bet on NBA games:

I can't be sure, because it was a few years ago that I first read this book, but this may have been when I realised that betting the 'dime line' (i.e. Pinnacle's 1.952) on 50/50 bets, winning just 51.23% of bets would result in a profit. 

Given that my grandmother would be expected to pick winners at a rate of around 50%, and she's been dead for over 30 years, this didn't seem to be a hugely impossible task.

It's not as easy as it might seem of course, but as explained above, you're not betting against a sportsbook with otherworldly powers of prediction. You are betting against other members of the public, and in some markets more than others, the public aren't too smart. 

Should you require evidence of this, just look at the number of idiots following tipsters on Twitter. 

The goal is to take a contrarian approach, or to use the American expression, to fade the public.

While the following quote has its problems, the gist of it is correct:

Let’s start with a simple premise: The public loses. Not every time, but over the long haul being on the same side as majority of bettors isn’t a sound strategy. Why? Public bettors tend to rely on gut instinct, overvalue recent performance and usually gravitate toward favorites, home teams and overs. By taking a more contrarian approach, you’re capitalizing on public bias and taking advantage of artificially inflated numbers. As an added bonus, you also place yourself on the side of the sportsbooks.

As previously stated, the sportsbooks don't have a side. Their goal is to balance the money so that they win whatever the outcome of the event. Our goal is to identify markets where the money has made the sportsbooks adjust their lines and prices too far.

Bet numbers, not on teams.  

So if one assumes the sharper books know their stuff, and thus a significant move indicates pressure on them to change their 'accurate' prices, does this mean there is value to be had? Certainly in the image above, it would appear so, at least in the NBA, although the sample size was small. 

When it comes to football, I pretty much limit myself to the Draw these days, and I can tell you that if you backed the Draw in the English Premier League in every match where it closed with a 5% or more drift from its 'opening' Pinnacle price, you'd have an ROI of 24.6%.   

Don't try this on Chelsea home matches though. When the Away team shortens by up to 5%, jump on the steamer and back the Away team - 129 bets and an ROI of 34.8%. 

Flies Dropping and Bats Swinging

They're dropping like flies at the moment. Hot on the heels of the retirement of Simple Soccer Stats mentioned in my previous post, I return from my trip to read that Trader 247 is also calling it a day after ceasing trading last August:

I stopped trading last year after seeing the small profits disappear and not spending any time with the bot. My interest is in programming and as I moved from VBA to .NET and the wonders of Visual Studio, I was more interested in app development than raking over market data.

There's nothing like losing money for killing interest in blogging. On the other side of the blogging longevity coin, it's now more than eleven years since this inaugural post kicked off Green All Over. 

2,561 posts later, and it's still going relatively strong although 2018's 107 posts was a yearly low. Not all have been fascinating posts I freely admit, but the other 2,560 certainly have been (and yes, that is a joke you may have seen before as I repeat it on most anniversaries). 

Travel with work was the main reason for the decrease last year, and may restrict posting this year too, but a lifetime average of 473 hits a day, and 10k a month means that at least a few people are still reading.     

Someone emailed me a few days ago asking if I had any copies of 101Trader's blog:

Hi, someone suggested you might have stored offline a blog copy I was after. A real long shot, but do you remember @101trader a year ago, a seemingly successful overs trader. Looking at Twitter he directs people to his blog for answers that has been taken down. I don’t suppose you have or know how I can get my hands on it?

If anyone can help, let me know, but when someone takes their blog down, chances are there was something awry and the phrase "seemingly successful overs trader" is likely very well considered. It's very difficult to gain an edge in the Over / Under football markets.

We're so close to the end of the season, that I'll probably wait until it's over before looking at the Premier League Draw again, and it's the same with the NHL and NBA regular seasons which both conclude next month, but the MLB season has already started with two 'International Series' matches in Tokyo already in the books. Excluding international openers, this season's March 28th opening day is the earliest in history, and for London fans, there's a 'London Series' (Boston Red Sox / New York Yankees) at the Olympic Stadium at the end of June to look forward to.

Readers will know that I follow a couple of strategies in baseball, with the results of the T-Bone method in recent seasons below:

During the off-season, I've been looking at further improving the T-Bone, and have found some interesting opportunities.

MLB is of course two leagues, with the big difference between the National League and the American League that the latter uses the "Designated Hitter" - a player who does not play in the field, but is used to bat for the pitcher.

While I don't like to have too many qualifiers on methods, adding a filter or two and eliminating non-profitable selections can make a big difference to an ROI.

I'm also not interested in single season observations, but if I see something persisting over three of more seasons, I do take note.

Here's the basic return from the T-Bone system over the last five seasons (money line and run line bets) and below that, the same system with one simple filter applied: 

The differences are huge, especially on the Run Line bets. 246 bets saved, and the time they take to place shouldn't be underestimated, and ROI percentages into double figures. 

Baseball is a sport with definite trends showing as the season progresses. Readers will know of some early season trends (generally April and May) and other methods that are more profitable after the All-Star Break, so with such an early start to the season, there's not a lot of data for March matches. 

The profitability of backing hot favourites in recent years is another area readers will be well aware of, and here are the results month-by-month of that strategy:

April is perfect, and so is March I guess, but that number for March is from just seven matches. I tend to include the handful of March games with April and October games with September to make six full monthly regular season groupings.

Note that returns are all calculated using the US practice of risking the line to win 100 units when playing favorites, and risking 100 units to win the line when playing on underdogs.

Dispersion Of Skill

One of the longer running blogs linked to by the longest running of all sports investing blogs is that of Simple Soccer Stats where Leon Pidgeon has this week decided to hang up his keyboard after ten and a half years and return to his loft:

So much has changed in those years but right now I don’t have the time or dedication to continue with the site. I was a keen bettor with plenty of time on my hands staying up late and studying everything. I’m now 10 years older with a family and no spare time on my hands. I also don’t even bet on matches anymore so I am keeping the site going more out of a duty to the people who use it.

Leon certainly published a lot of stats, but as I have written previously, you're not going to find it very easy gaining an edge over the big players when trading top flight football. In his defence, he does refer to them as 'simple' stats, and looking at an edge from early goals, bogey teams, half-time scores etc. is unlikely to lead to riches. Leon doesn't mention how much he made in those ten years, but I hope it was worth the time invested and I wish him well in the future.

I'll leave the link up for a few months, before taking it down, but to compensate, I've added a couple of well-written and researched horse racing blogs from Gareth, one focused on the Grand National and one on Trainer Profiles. If horse racing is your thing, then check them out. 

I'm traveling to Texas this weekend hoping to catch a Golden State Warriors game there on Monday night, and there's an interesting article on the progress of sports betting legalisation in the US at Axios. Actually, it's not really an article but more of a list of bullet points, but a couple are interesting, if not news to readers of this blog.

The writer, Kendall Baker, writes that:

...too many of us equate sports betting to playing roulette (a game of luck), when in reality, it's much more like investing in a stock (a game of skill).

As I've written before, when someone writes or talks about 'bashing the bookie', they are showing their ignorance about how the industry works.

"Bookmakers operate in a manner strikingly similar to that of stockbrokers.The customers of each try to predict the outcome of events. The sports bettor thinks, feels, or relies on someone else's opinion that a specific team will win a game. An investor in securities also thinks, feels, or relies on someone else's opinion that a specific stock's price will increase or decrease. As more money is bet on a team than its opponent, the money odds, or point spread, will increase. As the demand for a certain stock increases, the price of the stock increases." - Jack Moore

Mr. Baker also quotes Ted Leonsis, owner of Washington D.C.'s Capital One Arena as well as the four teams who play there (Wizards, Capitals, Mystics, Valor), about this disconnect between how sports betting and stock trading are viewed:

"It's a generational thing. When someone my age closes their eyes and thinks of sports betting, they imagine some back room with cigarette smoke and cocktail waitresses and a mafia guy walking in with a paper bag full of cash."

"For the younger generation. what conjures up in their minds is playing daily fantasy sports. Rather than thinking of sports betting as this criminal activity, they associate it with the idea of 'how much smarter am I than you because I did my research.'"

Fortunately for those of us with an at least somewhat functioning brain, sports betting attracts not only those who understand what is required to gain an edge, but seemingly many more, almost always uneducated and almost illiterate, who think it is an easy way to get rich. It isn't, despite what you might read on social media, but this dispersion of skill is what we need to be profitable. 

Back in the US and the NHL regular season has just 23 days to go, with one team already guaranteed a play-off place. I'll update the numbers next month, but the basic system currently has an ROI of 12.2% while the more exclusive selections (only 36 bets) have an ROI of 22.1%. The Vegas Golden Knights play tonight and I'm hoping for 12 wins from the last 14. 

The NBA is also in the final stages of the regular season, and March has so far not been kind to the Overs on High Totals backers. It all depends on your entry point of course, and which sportsbook you use for your line, but if you are backing when the line is 225 and over, March has probably not been a pleasant time so far.

Some perspective though - the last full month when backing Overs in the regular season when the Total was 225 and higher was under 50% was December 2009.

Finally, MLB is poised to return. Will the famous T-Bone System be profitable for the 8th time in 9 seasons?  Last season certainly showed no signs of a slowdown and weaknesses in American sports markets certainly seem to persist a lot longer than in say European top-class football. 

Gone Dancing, Madness

One Draw from the ten English Premier League games this weekend, and it wasn't the Big 6 match, means that the percentage of Draws this season drops still further to 19.06% and is challenging 1929-30 for the third fewest in the past 100 years: 

If there should be no Draws in the five Premier league games next weekend (the big teams such as Crystal Palace are all engaged in F A Cup Quarter-Final action) then third place it will be. 

And if there are 10 or fewer Draws from the remaining 81 matches, the 1931-32 record is beaten. The all-time record 12.12% of 1890-91 is safe however, at least for another season.

Moving on to bigger balls, and it's March Madness time in College's version of basketball, and an event I have written about in the past both here and elsewhere. It's like the FA Cup from the third round, with four second round replays pending, played over three weeks on neutral courts, and it's hugely popular in the US.

The 'big dance' is preceded by Conference Tournaments, which for the major conferences, take place this week, but be wary that trends seen in regular season conference play do not often carry over.

Having lived for several years in SEC country, that's the conference I focus on, and while in regular season conference play, the money is on Unders in narrow spread games. The conference expanded in 2012, and over the last five seasons, this system has a 55.2% record in regular season games, but in the conference tournament, the edge on these games moves to the Overs with a 56.2% strike rate. 

With thirteen national champions this century between them, the ACC (7) and the Big East (6) are also worth following. 

The ACC expanded in 2014, and in the last five years, in conference tournament games Overs has a 65.6% winning record, while in 'league' games Unders has the edge at 52.7%.

In the Big East, since the conference was reconfigured in 2013, there have only been 16 qualifying matches in tournament play, far too small a number to be useful, but the regular season offers value on spread bets in close games. 

Stop The Press: Spurs Draw

So Spurs finally draw a league game, ending the streak at 32, their first 'Big 6' Draw in 11 months.

Qualifying Big 6 matches are now +3.62 points from 14 matches, with six games remaining this season.  

Before I departed for another work trip last month, overall the Draw in the Premier League was striking this season at exactly 20%, but since then has declined still further, currently at 19.4% which is the third lowest in top English division since the Second World War, and the 5th lowest in 100 years, in fact since the game-changing 1925 change in the offside law. 

For those who can't remember that time, the impact on goals per game, and thus on the probability of a Draw, was dramatic, In the 1923-24 season, the goals per game average was the lowest it had ever been at 2.474 with no less than 55 goalless draws. 

As attendances dropped, the FA looked at changing the offside law and the current rules, albeit with a few subsequent tweaks, were introduced in the summer of 1925. The result was that the 1925-26 season saw the average goals per game jump to 3.686, and goalless draws drop to just 15.

Averages (mean) can be a bit 'mean'ingless when there are outlier results such as 5-5, 8-3 and 11-2, but a more useful indicator perhaps is that the median goals per game doubled, from 2 to 4.

As readers of this blog and of my articles on the Draw elsewhere will know, the strike rate of the Draw has varied over the years. In the formative first eight seasons of the league, fewer than 16% of matches were Draws. As the number of goals dropped, so the number of draws increased, averaging 22% in the remaining seasons before the Great War stopped play. 

Draws increased after the war until the Offside Rules changed, and the higher number of goals of course meant fewer Draws.

Draws occurred in 29% of matches in 1920-21, a frequency not beaten until 1946-47, and coincidentally both seasons were just after a major war (something to make a note of perhaps, in the event that a Third World War takes place). That record was surpassed in the early days of the Premier League, with 30.74% in 1993-94 and the all-time high of 31.32% in 1996-97.

The first five seasons of the EPL saw Draws in 29% of matches, generally declining to this seasons EPL record low.

Backing the Draw in every EPL game this season (never a good idea) and you'd be down 74.43 points, a -26% ROI, but backing it in games where the difference in 'true' prices is less than 10% and you're again in profit (see above). This strategy is also profitable in every season in the Pinnacle era with an ROI of 20.6% from 159 matches.

Looking at the pre-Pinnacle years, using prices adjusted for the challenging over-rounds of those days (up to 112%), and it's interesting that when the Home team was the slight favourite, the Draw wasn't a value bet, but since Pinnacle came along, it is actually slightly more value then when the Away team is slightly favoured.

When the prices on both teams are exactly the same, the ROI is a rather impressive 96.6% in the Pinnacle era.   

As others have previously noted, in matches between evenly matched teams, backing the Draw is a solid strategy and the overall low strike rate for Draws this season shouldn't be of undue concern.

More interesting than that the Draws have dried up, is the question of where have they gone to? In a word, they have gone Away, with Away wins currently at 33.22% of matches which will be a record for the top division in England if it remains that way. 

25/25

It's been a while since we looked at the Draw in the Premier League, in part because there haven't been that many this season. With 250 games played, exactly 20% have ended as Draws, an all-time low for the Premier League. As always with football, using Pinnacle's closing odds courtesy of Joseph Buchdahl's Football-Data web site, the outcome of backing the Draw in every game is, as usual (2010-11 was an exception), a disaster.

Currently you'd be down 56.97 points from 250 bets, a negative ROI of 22.8%, and you'd be forgiven for thinking the Draw offers no value, but as I wrote back in November:

A more selective rule of less than 25% and this climbs to 41.78 points from 155 matches, an ROI of 27%".

The rule being that of backing the Draw in "Big 6" matches when the difference between the 'true' win probabilities for both teams is in that 25% to -25% range. 

With only seven qualifying matches so far, it's not a big sample (to put it mildly), but these close contests have produced three winners and a 3.58 point profit. 

What about other match types in the 25% to -25% range - the Little 14 and David v Goliath matches you may be asking? Backing the Draw in both these categories is profitable, no surprise there as they are by definition 'close' matches, but what is a surprise is how much profits are improved by ignoring Little 14 matches where the market has the Home team as favourite. 

Overall, the 25/25 system since 2000 is up 73.10 points from 1,456 matches, but eliminate those Little 14 matches where the market makes the Home team favourite, and the profit jumps to 129.91 points, while the number of matches drops to 664. The difference in ROI is huge, almost quadrupling from a decent 5% to a very decent 19.6%.

The outstanding value in the EPL this weekend would appear to be Tottenham Hotspur at a very generous 2.96 with Pinnacle, as advertised in their Tweet yesterday (above). Good luck collecting though. Clearly a palpable error will be claimed as there is no such team as Leicetser City. 

Bayes Laughs, Others Miss The Joke

It was't the most exciting end to the 2018 NFL season with the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever, but from an investment perspective, it was another profitable one.

For those following the Small Road 'Dogs system this season, the regular season ROI was 7.8%, and for those saving themselves for Divisonal games only, the ROI was 9.9%. In the playoffs, the ROI was 30.1%, and for all categories combined the ROI was 9.6%. 

As readers will be aware, the Small Road 'Dogs strategy isn't new. Since the 2002 season, the numbers for the Regular season are:

Those are the baseline numbers. If you are a little more selective, those percentages can all be increased and only one season since 2005 has seen the strike rate below 50%:

It may not be the most exciting way to make money, but 56.9% is fantastic over 17 years. Ignore the claims of those who say they can win coin-toss bets at a strike rate anywhere close to 70% as one Twitter handle (now deleted) claimed:

The esteemed Joseph Buchdahl (@12xpert) has a few tweets on this conman, and I liked this comment from Andrew Mack after the claimed 70% strike rate went closer to 40%:

No one, not even Mel (his claimed strike rate was 50% to 60% at 2.8), can beat the odds long-term by this kind of a margin.

To paraphrase Steve, for profitability you need an edge, discipline, patience and perseverance. A sense of humour might be helpful too:

I may have added at least six years to mine.

Undesirable Behaviour

In my last post, I mentioned a comment made by spanky, whose bio on Twitter describes him as a Professional Sports Bettor. Some of you follow him, and would have seen that a few days ago he posted some videos of himself being restricted at some sportsbooks.

At the time, my thoughts were that this might not be the smartest move to make. Not only do some of the videos show sportsbook employees, but his own face is clearly identifiable, and I'm not sure why someone already having trouble getting on would draw attention to themselves in that way. Sportsbooks in the US have strict rules about filming and clearly his actions with a hidden camera breached those rules. 

Spanky Tweeted on January 14th:

Yesterday, he gripes on Twitter that:

"I just got a certified letter dated January 16th banning me. My “Undesirable Behavior” is winning too much!?! I never even stepped foot in the joint! Regulated Bookmaking in America sucks!"

As quite an expert on undesirable behaviour myself, I'm not convinced that winning belongs in this category. My suspicion was that it was actually his filming in casinos which had brought about the ban, and had nothing to do with "winning too much" but this justification drew the sympathy of many followers judging by the comments. 

But sure enough, there in the comments several hours later was a credible reply explaining that:

Presumably the casino made clear the reasons for the eviction at the time, and leaving out this rather important detail, and promoting one more to his liking is poor form. I wonder why he might do that?

It's probably also not in his favour that he's previously been in legal trouble, with a criminal record, agreeing to a plea deal in Queens, NY, to stay out of jail after being charged by the FBI with:

"enterprise corruption; fourth-, third-, second-, and first-degree money laundering; first-degree promoting gambling; fourth-degree conspiracy; and fifth-degree conspiracy."

That's a lot of degrees! If spanky really has an edge, he should bet on the exchanges (now legal in New Jersey I am told) and keep a much lower profile than has been the case of late.  

The Super Bowl Trap

According to the NFL Players Association, the average career length is about 3.3 years, which makes it all the more remarkable that of the 18 Super Bowls since 2001, the New England Patriots will have played in exactly half of them. Since 1986, they will have played in 11, with a 5-5 record to date. Their opponents next Sunday are the Los Angeles Rams.

Seventeen seasons of data isn't much, but there are a couple of trends if you feel the need to bet on the biggest event of the year, the risks of which I have written about before. 

These big sporting events are seldom good for the serious investor. With so much interest, value is impossible to find. The Derby might be a big deal for the owners, jockeys, trainers, but for the sports investor a winner is a winner whether it be in a maiden race at Cartmel (I've been there too) or the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. It might not sound so good in the pub that you didn't have a bet on the Derby but that you had the winner (Breeze Out) in the 2:10 at Hexham, but then why bother? No one except you really cares anyway!

Here's Spanky's opinion on this topic:

The argument against this of course, is that because it's such a huge game, the ratio of sharp to mug money is at its lowest.

You have been warned. This season's game has (currently) the highest total since 2001 at 58.0 points. Of the four previous Super Bowls with a total at 50 or higher, three have gone Under, and the one Over outcome needed an overtime. Overs is historically the play when the line is 50 or less, with a 61.5% record, but the total won't be anywhere near this. But before you lump on Unders, read on.

For the line, Favourites have a poor record, covering the spread in just 5 of the 17 games. However in the five games with the narrowest spreads, Favourites have a winning record. 

The line (currently) for next week has the New England Patriots at -2.5 / -3.0, and a narrow spread tips the scales in favour of Overs, with 7 of the top 8 games ending Over. 

The Rams actually opened as one point favourites, but William Hill reported that 94% of money that came in at that number was on the Patriots, and the line moved. The amount of money bet is useful data - Pinnacle's 'Betshare' is not. 

NFL Divisional Round 2018

The New England Patriots are unique among NFL teams in that when it comes to the playoffs, there's a relative abundance of data to look at. 

While every NFL team has played in at least one playoff game since the current format was introduced, yes, even the Cleveland Browns, exactly half have played in games totaling in single digits. 

Far and away at the top of the list is the Patriots with 34 games, soon to be 35 following their not unexpected thrashing of the Los Angeles Chargers this evening in the Divisional Round.

The pre-game price of 1.59 on Betfair looked remarkably generous given the Patriots 18-3 record at home in playoff games including 10-1 in Divisional games. The last nine of these games have also been Overs, with the Patriots covering the spread in 6 of the last 7 games.

Overs is generally the value bet this weekend as I mentioned last week, but for matches played on grass, the value remains on Unders, as evidenced by the two Unders in yesterday's games hosted by the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams.

The upcoming New Orleans Saints v Philadelphia Eagles game is being played on an artificial surface, and while it's a smaller data set than for the Patriots, perhaps worth mentioning that Overs has been the result in all five Saints home playoff games, and that the Saints have a 100% record straight up.

Streaking On Ice

While the NFL playoffs are the most high profile thing going on in January for the sports I follow, the NHL and NBA continue on a daily basis. 

I mentioned the NHL system earlier this year, and two more wins in 2019, including the Dallas Stars last night, have extended the winning sequence to 12, which is just two shy of the record for any of my systems. 

14 consecutive winners in Baseball in 2013 is the record, but those selections were all in the 1.26 to 1.33 range, so the accumulator was 'only' around 40-1. 

By way of comparison, the NHL accumulator currently stands at 825-1, which certainly is a record. 

In the NBA, Overs continues to dominate. At last seasons 215.5 points entry level, the 2018-19 season has so far seen 423 bets, and has an ROI of 8%, while the more manageable 225.5 points mentioned pre-season currently has an ROI of 10.8%.

Not all matches are the same however, with the ROI increasing to 19% when visiting teams are from the West.

And not all Divisions are the same for that matter, with some Divisional teams pushing the ROI still higher this season to 35.2%. This is getting to be more profitable than UK horse racing!

American Football Pro Am

The NFL Wild Card Weekend "W" strategy (Unders and Underdogs) was again profitable this past weekend:

Small Road 'Dogs (receiving 7 points or fewer) are now 25-13-2 since the current format was implemented in 2002, with the NFC selections hitting at an astonishing 73.9%, with a verifiable ROI of 42.4%.

The upcoming Divisional Matches this weekend have their own personality, although the edge on Small Road 'Dogs continues in this round. The over / under advantage overall moves to Overs in this round, but not on all surfaces, so be careful. 

Last night saw the College Football season come to an end with the Championship game between Alabama and Clemson. The current playoff format was only introduced in 2015, so data is meagre, but these two teams have certainly dominated. Of the 15 matches, Alabama feature in nine, Clemson in seven, and Alabama v Clemson comprises four of them. The games are all on neutral grounds and one early trend suggests the Small Neutral 'Dogs are worth following in these games. But with almost a year to wait until the next playoffs, hardly worth detailing right now.    

NFL Wild Card Weekend 2018 Season

This weekend's Wild Card and next week's Divisional rounds are my favourite of the NFL season. Two elimination games a day, and with an average line of 4.8 points, the games are usually competitive. 

Although the format for both weekends is the same, the matches themselves, and thus the markets, are not. The biggest difference is that the Divisional Rounds sees the four home teams all rested after a bye week, their reward for being one of the top two teams in each Conference. It's a huge advantage. 

Since the current playoff format was introduced in the 2002 season, only three wild-card teams have won the three road games needed to reach the Superbowl, and none since 2010.  

As I mentioned earlier in the week, and last year, Unders is the value play on Wild Card Weekend. These games are similar in nature to the Divisional regular season games, and are sometimes between Divisional rivals. The most recent example was yesterday's Houston Texans v Indianapolis Colts match.

The table (left) shows the Unders results in regular season Divisional games since the 2008 season. 

Underdogs are also the play in Wild Card Weekend, as I tweeted yesterday. Road 'dogs by a touchdown or less cover the spread 64% of the time.

There's still one game to go this weekend, but followers will be happy with the results so far. 

I had a cheeky bonus bet on the Los Angeles Chargers to win outright at 2.46. 

My wife seems to have lost interest in her home town team since they relocated to Los Angeles, but her father's interest seems to be rekindled this season. 

What a difference a winning season makes.

Up next, my son's Eagles, looking to cover 6.5 points in Chicago. Well actually, they're probably looking to win, but I'll take the small loss and Under 42 points.

Fly Eagles Fly.

Law Of Anomalous Numbers

Life is full of coincidences. Yesterday I wrote a post and extolled the virtues of a certain Leighton Vaughan Williams, while almost ten years ago, I wrote about Benford numbers, and included an article written by the same Professor Williams on the subject. 

Casually included towards the end of that article, were these lines:

The same principle applies to trailing (i.e. last) digits. It's a great way, therefore, of checking the veracity of receipts. If, for example, there is an unusual number of trailing digit '7's, there's a decent chance that the figures are cooked. Tax authorities are alert to this.

In the past, I have published the Benford numbers from my Betfair trading spreadsheet, which is now into its 14th year, having been started on January 1st 2006. They're nothing more than a curiosity, but I like numbers so it's a fun annual exercise. 

Having re-read the article referenced above, I was a little sceptical that the claim that the law applies to trailing digits was correct, and sure enough it isn't. If tax authorities are analysing trailing digits, they are wasting their time.

Below are my 13 years of Benford data, including for the first (and last) time, the results for trailing digits:

Other than my 7s and 9s being 0.8% lower and higher than expected respectively, the numbers are pretty close to expectation, but for the trailing digits, the evidence is clear that every digit has pretty much the same chance of appearing. Benford's law does NOT appear to apply to trailing digits.

Benford's Law does apply to the second digit, although within a narrower range, and again my results are fairly close to those expected, but from third digit on the differences are even less. 

The law is useful for detecting bogus numbers, speaking of which, an astonishing claim was made overnight regarding my post on horse-racing and beating the insider traders.

Aluckyaday Tweeted:

The effort required to profit from horse racing at softbooks is very minimal. My selections take me about 15 minutes a day, and have over the last 3 years returned a 27.5% ROI. If you are able to bet with softbooks then racing offers more profit opportunities than any other sport

Goodness me. And there I was thinking an ROI of 2.75% over one year was good. 

Curious though as to what planet these soft-books are located on, that allow someone to win more than peanuts over three years at anywhere near this rate of return? 

An Acceptable Reward

There's nothing like a healthy debate to get the hit count climbing. The topic is the impact to the general public of the presence in UK horse racing markets of insiders, specifically can the advantage of insider information be overcome long-term?

Others, far more knowledgeable than myself about betting markets, and who also maintain a healthy attitude of scepticism, have reached the conclusion that 

"long term profitability in racing requires some form of insider knowledge" 

and I am with Joseph Buchdahl on this. With one caveat.

There seems to be no dispute that insider gambling exists. A 2010 paper from the University of Sussex stated that:

It has been suggested that insider gambling is an acceptable reward for those involved in owning and training horses (see the discussion in Crafts, 1985). However, in most countries of the world, the use of insider business information is illegal and it is difficult to argue that horse racing has any features that would make insider gambling acceptable. Thus, there is a strong economic argument for regulation of insider gambling. However, the detection of insider gambling raises many practical problems.

The question thus revolves around just how big a hurdle the advantage held by insiders is. Readers of this blog will know that one of the books that has had the most impact on my sports investing is Leighton Vaughan Williams' Information Efficiency in Financial and Betting Markets.

On this topic, he writes (p140) that:

On the basis of this evidence, Crafts concluded that British horse-racing betting markets do offer insiders the opportunity for profitable exploitation of information not publicly available.  

However, Williams also notes (p139) that some races are more likely to be influenced by insiders than others, an argument which makes perfect sense and which applies to other sports as well.

He [Crafts] reasoned that a shortening (lengthening) of the odds available about a horse during the course of the market may indicate evidence of insiders who knew the true probabilities of that horse winning were greater (less) than those implied in the odds offered early in the market. 

Williams' wrote a lot more in his ~390 pages, and if you are serious about making money from betting, you really should read every page, and probably more than once. It's not cheap, but you get what you pay for, and the book should pay for itself many times over. 

Insider information is logically much less of a concern in the Derby than a Maiden race at Cartmel, and while there is only one English Derby a year, there are certainly several high profile races a year where a disciplined expert bettor would be playing on a fairer playing field.

Again, the idea that anyone outside of the racing industry can be profitable long-term seems unlikely, but with a selective approach, I'm happy to concede that it is theoretically possible.

I was expecting someone to give this selectivity as a reason why my intentionally broad statement might be wrong, but that no one did, is interesting. 

I suspect that in practice, with account restrictions and premium charges, not many are able to make a good living even with such a selective approach. Perhaps the thrill is more in the mathematical challenge of it all rather than for the money. I can identify with that feeling. It would seem likely that the amount of time spent to gain an edge in racing would be significant, and of course, the higher profile the race, the more competition you are up against in the hunt for value, again something that applies to other sports too. The chances of having a genuine edge in the Superbowl would seem to be far lower than in say a season opening Arkansas Razorbacks v Missouri Tigers game.  

Hugh Taylor's name came up during the debate, and regardless of the extent of his relationship with the racing industry, consensus appears to be that his edge comes from poring over the numbers. A lot of hard work, and it does seems strange that he wouldn't quietly go about his business and milk the golden goose, (mixed metaphors intended), rather than give the value away to others. Possibly an At The Races salary exceeds what can be made from backing these selections? 

I'll continue to mostly leave horse racing alone. There are plenty of sports markets with inefficiencies that are easier to exploit. It was suggested that I...

... seem to have an axe to grind against horse betting, I suspect you tried and failed and its comforting to label everyone else the same. It appears you can make wild claims with no evidence and feel vindicated

It would be odd to have an axe to grind against an activity, but regardless, since tracking my results from 2006, my Horse Racing returns are surprisingly positive, (meagre, but nonetheless positive), so I wouldn't say that I have either tried or failed. I'm just not sure the rewards would justify the effort. 

Your Logical Fallacy Is Anecdotal

As I mentioned previously, I found myself dragged into a debate on the topic of whether it is possible to win long-term on UK horse-racing given that insiders are ever present.

It was @lordlard who included me in a response to @SmarterSig tweeting:

@SmarterSig then changed the topic, writing:

I do not agree with his assertion that you cannot beat the market in horseracing using publicly available data

I suggested that:

It’s fine to disagree with me but you should be able to support your assertion with a logical argument. Why would insider trading be unlawful if the public were not at a disadvantage? By its very nature, horse racing has its insiders. Good luck beating their edge long term.

My basic premise is this - Horse racing has always had its insiders as I have written about before. If you are not privileged to such information, then you are at a disadvantage, and have a negative EV. If others know more about a race than you do, the odds are against you. Sure, you might win over the short-term, but you are highly unlikely to overcome this disadvantage over the long-term.

SmarterSig claims that he and others are making money long-term from UK horse racing, but anecdotal evidence is limited in value. SmarterSig conceded that horse-racing markets are rigged but wrote that:

My numbers suggest that I am not being lucky

Hardly an unbiased opinion, and the suggestion that there may be skill at work rather than luck remains unproven.

I'm not the only one who is sceptical about the likelihood of overcoming a negative EV long term with no non-public information. Fellow sceptic Joseph Buchdahl joined the fray, adding:

I’m already on record as believing that long term profitability in racing requires some form of insider knowledge. Of course it’s not my field so I may be wrong. 

It's not my field either, because as an outsider, I see the challenge of beating horse racing as similar to trying to forecast a company's financial results. Others with inside (or privileged) information will always know more than I do. There's a reason why insider trading in financial markets is illegal - it is unfair to take advantage of those without access to this information.

If a horse can be backed at a certain price, it's because others more knowledgeable than you aren't interested in it at that price. Is it because they don't know what they are doing, and are missing out on the value? Unlikely, or they would soon be out of business. The only other reason is that it is poor value.

An optimistic attitude is all well and good, but a healthy dose of reality needs to be maintained.

If someone really does have an edge in UK horse-racing, they should soon be very wealthy indeed, if they can keep accounts open of course, and as @lordlard wrote:

Folk quietly making a living aren’t going to be shouting on Twitter about it. It’s at odds with the skillset required.

Quite. Returning full circle to the initial topic of complete frauds, you might expect the lifestyles of supposedly successful traders to be a little more reflective of their reported success than appears to be the case. I suspect that there is a direct (inverse) correlation between how much people talk about their success, and how successful they actually are. 

As unlikely as it is given the completely different structures of the betting markets in Hong Kong and the UK, if someone is 'doing a Bill Benter' in the UK, you won't know them by name. And no, it isn't, and wasn't, Adam Heathcote. 

Lennon, Marmite and Heathcote

These new years come around fast as you get older. 2019 is the twelfth year of this blog, and although my posts were down in number last year, the hits keep coming. I mentioned in the last post of 2018 that I'd be taking a break, although it wasn't as relaxing as I'd hoped.

My work trip to New York ended with my return coinciding with the night of the reported drone activity at Gatwick, resulting in my flight being diverted to the northern wasteland of Liverpool and its John Lennon Airport. Hard to 'imagine'. I arrived at Gatwick by bus about 18 hours later than scheduled, and my bags finally caught up with me two days after that. 

In the preceding few days, my stubborn Mum fired all the carers provided to her after fracturing her hip in a fall. One had put bone china into the microwave, one committed the heinous crime of making marmalade instead of Marmite on toast, and a third was too tall, although there may have been more to that story.

Having unilaterally declared her independence, she then proceeded to fall three more times in the space of five days, before one of my sisters took control and moved both of my parents into a care home. One of my nieces found her on the floor after fall number three, and her claim to have "suddenly felt tired and decided to lay down" was not the most convincing cover story.

While not happy at first, she does now seem to be resigned to the fact that after 63 years, her days at the home her father bought her as a wedding present may well be numbered. It's all rather sad really.

So to betting, and December was a great month for the NHL system which started the month with a loss but which is now on a winning streak of ten:

In the NBA, the West v East Road Dogs system also had a profitable December: 

The Beast continues to be profitable and at least one person is taking advantage. At last season's 215.5 entry point, the system has an ROI of 6.8% while at higher entry points, the ROI is as high as 12%.

The NFL Regular season wrapped up with the Small Road Dogs in profit again for the 11th time in 13 seasons, and the Division system also adding to the profits:

The NFL's Wild Card weekend sees the Unders as the value bet, with an ROI since the current play-off format was introduced of 14.4%, and over the last six seasons of 38.3%. Be careful though, as the sample size is small.

Twitter has been interesting so far this year, as I found myself dragged into a debate on the topic of whether it is possible to win long-term on UK horse-racing given that insiders are ever present. I actually have to work today, but a full blog post on the topic will surely be along soon.

In the meantime, my old friend Mark Iverson raised the name of Adam Heathcote yesterday:

Adam was a relatively short lived Betfair character who after months of publishing unverified and highly unlikely profits - coincidentally from UK horse racing - started a subscription service which, by all accounts, was a complete and utter disaster.

After raking in a supposed £360k in two years, why Adam would have needed the income from a subscription service, or more importantly, was willing to give away the secret to his self-proclaimed success, and thus his edge, were two questions that didn't seem to trouble his subscribers. And of course there's always the question of why anyone with a Golden Goose would be telling the world about it. As @Lordlard wrote today:

Folk quietly making a living aren’t going to be shouting on Twitter about it. It’s at odds with the skill set required.

As the 'nice blog post' about Adam Heathcote mentioned above said:

It is quite staggering how quickly he was able to scale up.

Indeed it was. 

I wrote a couple of posts on this topic back in 2009, one of which I noticed has recently been quite popular. 

Some commenters did share my concerns, and one comment supportive of Adam included this all-time favourite line (typos included):

Your the type of bloke that would marry a Thai bride, sport a little beard and wear crocs.

The second post from a few days later is here with several people complaining about the quality of the service.

There's also another more recent post which touches upon Peter Webb's tie-in with Adam, and indeed Webb's transparency, which may interest some readers. 

NCAAF 2018 Small Road Dogs Summary

While there is one College Football game this weekend which technically qualifies for the Small Road 'Dogs System, it's the College version of a post season game, in this case a 'Bowl' game, which is being played in the home stadium of the one of the teams.

These games do come along at an average of 1.3 a season but they are not good propositions with a record since 1996 of 11-19-1.

Which means that the official numbers for the regular season system are now complete and the success continues.

A profit of 13.93 points is the second highest this century, and just one losing season in 18 years is really quite phenomenal. After 1,740 bets, the ROI is 7.7% over this time.

Restricting selections to Conference games resulted in even higher profits. The highest points total ever and another double digit ROI percentage.

The NFL version has four more weeks before the regular season is over, and continues in profit to date with an ROI of 6.8%. No updates before then anyway as I'll be travelling again for work from Monday for ten days, before taking some well deserved time off to spend Xmas with family.

There is one Big 6 match this weekend in the Premier League, with the ROI on these games 41.7% for the season, and 17.9% over the last 100 matches.